Friday, July 23, 2004

In Philip K. Dick's novel Valis, the main character, Horselover Fat, has an epiphany (one of many) where he comes to realize the there is one sentence that can destroy us, and one sentence can save us. Taken outside of the context of the book, I wonder if this is so, if a string of words can literally destroy our self-perception? What kind of person would deliver this blow? Someone who knew the other's weak spot, and, more importantly, wanted to destroy that person.

A scary thought. The opposite situation is where a series of words could heal someone. Dick called these people a micro-form of God. Perhaps these were what we use to call saints. Who are the saints of today? The poets, songwriters, novelists, bloggers? What sentence could heal you?

By Professor Batty

4 Comments:

I like the new format! And you made me want to go get that book and read it.

Thanks, I hope it looks as good on your computer as it does on mine, I'm still learning how this works, On some PC's the fonts are funky, maybe they don't have the New York font? In true Flippist fashion, when Blogger made colored fonts easier, I went to a simpler color scheme. I almost went to all-gray scale!